Follow Slashdot blog updates by subscribing to our blog RSS feed

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Comment Average Return Interval (Score 2) 349

Another misleading way of describing a statistic is to call the pandemic a 1 in 100 year event. This is misleading as statistics used to describe unpredictable events are average return intervals, or similar measures. An event with an average return interval of 1 in 100 years is a figure derived from historical observations and refers to the likelihood of the event occurring in any one year. The average return interval of a particular event is not necessarily recalculated at regular intervals. This seems reasonable if the average return interval is used in legislation regulating products and activities. Industries and individuals require some degree of certainty that the legislated standards that they are required to conform to aren't constantly changing. Describing the likelihood of these events reoccurring without calling them average return intervals (or whatever they designated as) makes people complacent or gives politicians a convenient excuse for inaction when they can think of the likelihood of an event not reoccurring for another 100 years.

Slashdot Top Deals

The aim of science is to seek the simplest explanations of complex facts. Seek simplicity and distrust it. -- Whitehead.

Working...